Appearance and reality - creating our own history and telling it to our friends, partner, work colleagues and, most importantly, to ourselves. Why do we do this? Well, perhaps, we do it in order to give our lives meaning and purpose and, by allowing our history to inform the present, we can even create something new of ourselves.
Our experiences are vast and, to me, resemble a film taken from a satellite that shows the man-made lighting system of Europe. Each glimmer is a reflection of something we did or experienced but few of us are content to leave them as random dots of light. We try to join up the dots (or the spots of light) in order to give them some kind of coherent narrative even if the truth is that, probably, the coherence was never there in the first place. If you are wondering what on earth I am talking about, then consider what you do when writing your curriculum vitae. Don't you try your best to give it coherence so that it has a story to tell about you that is of interest to you and to the potential employer?
In this way, we are retrospectively creating our very own mythology with its heroes and villains, its trials and tribulations and its successes and failures. But it is this myth that we tend to communicate to our children and our friends and family. It is highly likely that the majority of dots of light disappear quickly, but we are also able to join them together in different ways in order to develop another narrative and show it to the world. For example, you may have felt abandoned when, as a child, your parents were both out working and you were left alone for long periods of time and, as an adult you may feel resentment at what your parents did. On the other hand, you can learn to reconstruct this experience to say something like this. "I learned to be self reliant when I was a child and that is why I am such a successful entrepreneur. I am so used to being and working on my own."
Sometimes, this personal storyline becomes so strong that some people are able to change current behaviours to fit logically with their personal narrative.
Of course, this idea of appearance and reality, of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, of Dorian Gray and of King Kong is a goldmine for writers. My latest novella (as yet untitled) has this topic as its main theme. It concerns a couple - Two Lovers of Budleigh Salterton - who decide to keep their love alive by going on holiday to this Devon resort every year and pretending that they are meeting for the first time. It proves to be a good idea until people begin to notice, and that is when their little trick falls apart and nasty things begin to happen. So - appearance and reality. Creating your own personal narrative and telling it to yourself and others. I am a writer. I always wanted to be a writer. It's who I am. It's what I do and I hope it gives pleasure to at least some of my readers. Well, at least that is the narrative I tell myself.
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